The present invention relates to the field of milling technology, especially the HSC milling (High Speed Cutting milling), which is also designated as HPC milling (High Performance Cutting milling).
In the milling of freeform surfaces, a tool, a so-called miller, is moved relative to the workpiece. The motion of the tool relative to the workpiece is described by tool paths or milling paths. According to the prior art, such tool paths or milling paths are defined or programmed via support points or check points or way points. In order to ensure the best possible quality of the freeform surface to be milled, the spacing distance between the individual support points must be as small as possible. With a small spacing distance of the support points, the number of the support points per milling path is large. The greater the number of the support points, the greater is also the data volume to be processed by a control arrangement of the milling machine. The greater the data volume, accordingly the greater are the demands on the processing speed of the control arrangement of the milling machine. If, namely, the processing speed of the control arrangement is limited, then the case can certainly arise, that with a too-large number of the support points and therewith a too-high data quantity that is to be processed, the control arrangement of the milling machine can no longer process the arising data quantity in such a time window so that a continuous motion of the milling tool is ensured. In this case, the motion of the milling tool relative to the workpiece proceeds in a jerky or jump-like manner. This must be avoided for quality reasons. However, the larger that the spacing distance of the support points is selected, the more faceted the freeform surface that is to be milled becomes. Therefore quality problems arise also with a reduction of the support point number and thus with an increase of the support point spacing distance.